I am with Riley now, on her first day of work, the way I will be with her on the third day, when I walk all the way into the hospital beside her, over those high-gloss floors, our reflections trembling and undulating like we’re walking on water, which really comes down–doesn’t it–to a fixing of […]

I’ve been saying all week, unstoppable smile stretching wide, I get to celebrate Adam, meaning that’s at the bottom of everything, and you will think that’s exactly right, as it should be, when I tell you it’s his birthday. Candles with tiny flames will flicker on top of the chocolate Oreo layer cake he requested, […]

“When are we going to take a look at my planner,” Riley asks me, her voice stumbling along, like tripping feet. I glance up just in time to see a tear slide off the bottom of her jaw and feel, suddenly, the wrenching grip of compassion. Immediately on my feet, I move toward her. We […]

“You’re a healer,” one of my friends says to another, as we sit encircling, an invisible linking of arms. What an absolutely lovely, gracious gift, to heal, and as spiritual gifts are given by God for the blessing of others, I see that my sister lives as a healer for me. I sit in our […]

I don’t know what it is about a free t-shirt, but when the emcee in the arena on watch party night for hockey invites us to get to our feet and make some noise, promising t-shirts, we stand, a whole crowd of us fans hollering like hyenas, waving our arms in the air above our […]

In the hospital, the hiring manager for patient services has been telling Riley about a job serving meals to the hurting, the sick. “No one wants to be in a hospital,” he explains to her in his office, “and so sometimes the patients won’t be very kind to you or happy to see you.  They […]

It’s predictable, really, that I should be standing over a pile of laundry, smoothing out the cracked vinyl teeth of a monstrous snake-dragon-dinosaur style beast with my fingers, folding Adam’s favorite t-shirt, flashy with the logo of the Loch Ness Monster roller coaster, when it comes to me that generally my view of things is […]

Early Monday morning on the run, I feel it full, the gnawing hunger growing in my fasted body, my stomach only a pleasing kind of empty; the gnawing hunger growing in my slowed mind, like shadows licking at the edges, making everything dim with an alarming sense of lack. Hungry, but hungry for…what? My body […]

Overnight, the snow fell, blanketing our back yard in pristine white, and as Kevin hands me a refill on my morning cup, steam curling and rising, I notice the new light has gone slightly rose, like the delicate petal of an opening flower.  I whisper a prayer that always rises in me when it snows, […]

In the early evening, my friends and I almost curl around a table scattered with puzzle pieces.  We gently share loose bits of our lives while we look for patterns of color and shape, our voices meandering lightly with our fingers, picking up topics and discarding them—laughter tinkling, or a sigh of concern drifting through […]